The shocking New Year's Day attack in New Orleans took a grimly familiar turn when it emerged that the FBI had discovered videos made by suspect Shamsud-Din Jabbar in which he declared his support for the terrorist group Islamic State.
The FBI also found an Islamic State flag at the scene of the attack. Jabbar rammed his pickup truck into a crowd of people celebrating the new year in Bourbon Street killing at least 15 and injuring many more before firing a gun at police. Jabbar was shot dead.
Does the New Orleans attack show that the Islamic State terror threat is growing again? Newsweek put the question to experts. Here's what they told us.
Bruce Hoffman, Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security, Council on Foreign Relations; President, The Hoffman GroupCT
Yes. Since the Assad dictatorship was overthrown last month, the U.S. military has stepped up its air strikes on ISIS targets in that country because of an alarming increase in ISIS operations there.
In the U.S., FBI director Christopher Wray has repeatedly warned since the October 7, 2023 attacks of the danger of terrorist incidents in the U.S.—describing the situation as the most critical in his experience.
Moreover, in March 2023 the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt-Gen Scott Berrier and the commander of U.S. Central Command, General Michael Kurilla, warned that ISIS had already re-constituted its international terrorism capabilities.
This would also be the sixth significant international attack or attempt by ISIS in a year—in Iran, Turkey, Russia, Austria, and the plot in Oklahoma City on election day that was foiled by authorities a month previously.
Martha Crenshaw, Senior Fellow, Emerita, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University; Professor of Government, Emerita, Wesleyan University
The threat never went away but could be reactivated by events in the Middle East, particularly the overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria. It has likely motivated IS supporters including self-starters. We don't know enough yet to tell.
Daniel Byman, Professor and Director, Security Studies Program at Georgetown University; Senior Fellow, Center for Strategic & International Studies
Last year (2024) saw more active Islamic State plotting in the United States than 2023, although the levels and the threat are lower than they were when the group was at its peak a decade ago.
However, it remains unclear if the latest attack involved a single perpetrator or a larger group.
Harvey Wolf Kushner, Chairman and Professor, Criminal Justice Department, Long Island University
As someone involved in the study and countering Islamic-based terrorism for over 50 years, I believe the threat of Islamic terrorism is greater now than before September 11, 2001.
My autobiographical book, Holy War on the Home Front: The Secret Islamic Terror Network in the United States, discusses the threat in detail before the 9/11 attacks.
Today, it has metastasized into an entirely more potent threat.
Tricia Bacon, Associate Professor, School of Public Affairs, American University; Author, Why Terrorist Groups Form International Alliances
The Islamic State threat has been growing in various parts of the world, so this attack is consistent with that trend.
Michael S. Smith II, Terrorism Analyst and International Security Consultant Specializing in Influence Operations of ISIS and Al-Qaeda
Threats linked to ISIS here in the West never significantly ebbed.
Rather, the FBI and other agencies in the U.S. and partner governments have demonstrated increased acumen for identifying aspirant terrorists who intend to demonstrate support for ISIS, such as by traveling abroad to fight with the group or perpetrating attacks in their home countries in the West.
Indeed, hours before Trump repeated his false claim that ISIS was "defeated" during his first term while delivering his election victory speech, the FBI arrested an aspirant terrorist in the US who planned to travel overseas to join ISIS.
When was the last time anyone was caught trying to travel abroad to join a defeated terrorist group? When was the last time a terrorist perpetrated an attack like the one in New Orleans to demonstrate their support for a defeated terrorist group?
Meanwhile, tech companies like Telegram whose social media tools have been used by ISIS and al-Qa'ida to incite violence here in the West have gradually done more to constrain these terrorist groups' capabilities to use their platforms to damage both U.S. national and global security more broadly.
Still, ISIS has continued to use these platforms to project an image of strength and durability that factors centrally in its capabilities to build and reinforce support here in the West, including support in the form of attacks like the one in New Orleans.
One major component of its propaganda program in recent years has been the documentation of the group's widening terrorism campaigns throughout most regions in Africa, including southern Africa, where ISIS's operations have expanded significantly in Mozambique since 2019.
Successes like the ones ISIS has been achieving through these campaigns factor importantly in its capabilities to convince people far from those regions that the group is worthy of support.
Fawaz Gerges, Professor of International Relations, London School of Economics; Author of ISIS: A History
The threat of the Islamic State has never gone away. It ebbs and flows depending on world circumstances and social and political upheaval in Muslim societies.
IS has been in state of hibernation since 2019, morphing from the so-called caliphate to a guerrilla force and a transnational phenomenon.
More importantly, the Islamic State inspires and motivates deluded men who are either radicalized or who are mentally and psychologically scarred.
The ideological diet of the Islamic State is the fuel that powers lone wolfs who have carried out scores of terrorist attacks worldwide, including the United States.
Lorenzo Vidino, Director, Program on Extremism, George Washington University
The threat of jihadist terrorism had never gone away, even from the heights of 2014-18, and we have had attacks since then, albeit less frequent and most of them less lethal. IS has persisted in various ways.
The central organization, while unquestionably in disarray, still exists and still sends out its messages. Some of its local affiliates are active, some of them actually faring quite well (see for example ISIS K).
And most importantly, ISIS as a brand has remained somewhat intact, still popular, and massively disseminated online both through a top-down approach but even more horizontally by young people who take it upon themselves to produce and widely disseminate high-quality propaganda.
All this leads to the persistence of small pockets of jihadist sympathizers in the West, whether lone wolves or small clusters, who consume (and produce) ISIS propaganda and at times activate themselves to carry out attacks.
Mia Bloom, Professor of Communication and Middle East Studies, Georgia State University; International Security Fellow, New America
As Obama once said, ISIS was not an existential threat to Americans even at its height (compared to many countries in Europe). But inspiration by ISIS could certainly move people within the U.S. to engage in acts of terrorism.
ISIS published in its magazine Rumiyah exactly how to carry out vehicle ramming attacks, what kind of vehicle to use, which locations (sporting events, July 4th celebrations, the Superbowl).
The biggest issue is that we do not know what moves someone from consuming terrorist materials online to engaging in real-world violence. Moreover, the base rate of people who post and share radicalized and extremist materials is decidedly (and thankfully) low.
In all likelihood, the current Gaza crisis and the radicalization around that issue poses the greater threat. Many experts are more concerned about radicalization from extremists on both sides.
Paul R. Pillar, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Center for Security Studies, Georgetown University
That threat never went away entirely, notwithstanding the elimination of the group's "caliphate" in western Iraq and eastern Syria.
The current disorder in Syria following the fall of the Assad regime may give the group a new chance at boosting its fortunes in the Middle East, although this does not necessarily have much to do with whatever threat followers of Islamic State may pose in the United States.
J.M. Berger, Senior Research Fellow, Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism, Middlebury Institute of International Studies
There's been an uptick in activity recently, including a couple of major attacks in 2024. It's hard to say if this is a trend or just that the threat had persisted.
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